Services

COURT REPORTING SERVICES

For 33 years, Royal Reporting’s experienced court reporters have responded to the needs of our clients by providing prompt and efficient court reporting services.  As an integral part of our team, our certified court reporters are professional and attentive to detail utilizing the most up-to-date court reporting equipment and software.  Selecting the right court reporting firm is an important decision for the following reasons:

• Court reporting and transcription experience within a firm is crucial for accurate and timely transcript production.   Royal Reporting has 33 years of experience.
• Having a full complement of court reporters, transcriptionists, and proofreaders is imperative to ensure there is no disruption in court reporting or transcription services.   Royal Reporting employs over 60 professionals working in this specialized industry.
• Employing in-house office staff to manage, assist, and answer questions of clients, court reporters, and transcriptionists is paramount to the operations of a successful court reporting and transcription firm.   Also, employing staff members who are available to during the day and after hours to complete and ensure scheduling, quality control, production, and delivery of the final transcripts.  Royal Reporting employs 10 in-house professionals to manage our offices in Saskatchewan.
• Experience in providing services, court reporting and transcription, in relation to numerous proceedings which include all levels of court, criminal and civil, coroner’s inquests, hearings, questionings, examinations for discovery, meetings, and seminars.    Royal Reporting has that exact experience, 33 years, which is important to our clients. 
• Having in place confidentiality and security measures for every member employed through Royal Reporting is necessary and an integral part of preparing confidential transcripts.  Each and every member of Royal Reporting’s team, including the company, is security cleared to different levels.   
• (For more information on court reporting, see below, “Definition of a Court Reporter”.)

LEGAL TRANSCRIPTIONISTS

Whether you’re a lawyer seeking a court transcript or perhaps an organization requiring a verbatim transcript of a meeting or any proceeding, Royal Reporting Services can deliver.

Our transcriptionists are highly trained in providing timely, secure, and accurate transcripts from digital audio or video recordings.  Simply upload your audio to our secure FTP website located on this website or deliver your audio or video recording to our office in Regina.  Completed transcripts are available in printed form, on disk, email, or secure upload through our FTP site.

Clients can count on Royal’s expertise in producing accurate transcripts in a quick and confidential manner from a variety of recorded sources, including:

• Hearings,
• Court proceedings,
• Conference calls,
• Video proceedings ,
• Business meetings,
• Interviews, and
• Witness statements.

Professional transcriptionists either have a legal background, transcription experience, or go through extensive training provided by Royal Reporting’s experts.   Court reporters also provide transcription services by listening to the audio and writing the proceedings with their steno machine.

Royal Reporting and staff have developed a strong reputation in the court reporting and transcription industry focusing on the “verbatim word” producing accurate, verbatim transcripts.   For 33 years, Royal Reporting’s extensive experience has been in the transcription of court proceedings at all levels.   Contracts are held within Saskatchewan, Alberta, and Manitoba for the production of confidential proceedings which were recorded using ‘For the Record’ software.    We are committed to privacy and understand the importance of confidentiality and security, having measures in place with all members of Royal Reporting, including our facilities, to ensure full compliance as per the client’s request.

DIGITAL RECORDING TECHNICIANS

Our Recording Technicians will record any proceeding that requires a verbatim record to be produced.  They will digitally record a proceeding while preparing log notes as reference points to their recordings.  Accurate log notes and the recording of the proceeding assist in the preparation of a verbatim transcript.  Royal Reporting currently uses ‘For the Record’ recording software which is also utilized by most of the courts throughout Canada.

Recording Technicians are available to attend:

• Questionings/Examinations for discovery,
• Hearings,
• Meetings,
• Interviews, and
• Witness statements.

Many of Royal Reporting’s recording technicians have been previously employed within the provincial justice court system as a clerk of the court or a registrar, or have the experience necessary to become a digital recording technician.

DEFINITION OF A COURT REPORTER

A court reporter, also referred to as a stenographer, shorthand reporter, real-time reporter, or captioner, graduates from a comprehensive post-secondary court reporting college with writing speeds of 225 words per minute or higher.  Typically, court reporting programs are two to three years in duration. A court reporter is trained on a stenotype machine using computer-aided transcription referred to as CAT.   The average human speaks at about 180 words per minute; however, when you add multiple speakers at once, spoken words per minute can exceed 300 in lightning fast bursts.  Training to be a court reporter and learning to write on a steno machine is like learning a new language.

The court reporter is trained to capture the spoken word into a phonetic code onto a stenotype machine with each line of characters representing a sound or syllable.   The steno machine is an extremely complex computer with a hypersensitive keyboard consisting of 22 blank keys and a long blank number bar.   The spoken English language is then broken down into combinations of sounds and phrases that the court reporter will capture using keystrokes consisting of thousands of combinations of these blank keys.   Keystroke combinations are taught that correspond to sounds of the spoken English and the reporter must memorize thousands of keystroke combinations that represent frequently used phrasing in the English language, as well as thousands of brief keystrokes used for commonly used words and complicated medical and industry terms.

Learning the steno machine and mastering the language is half of the technology used by a court reporter to produce accurate and immediate transcripts.   The second half of court reporting technology is computer-aided transcription (CAT) software.  Like our machines themselves, CAT software is extremely sophisticated, very expensive, and requires separate training for a court reporter to truly become comfortable with and proficient in all of its functions and capabilities.   CAT software is loaded onto a laptop, and that laptop will be communicating with the court reporting machine either through a USB or wireless, and will be translating the keystrokes of machine shorthand into written English on the laptop screen in real time.  It is not just a multitude of words showing up on the screen in little or no format, like a Word document.  CAT software translates into an immediate transcript format with specific spacing, line numbers, timestamping, margins, and automatic punctuation at the end of questions and answers.

What is actually happening is the court reporter is instantaneously translating spoken English into machine shorthand in the form of quick keystrokes on the court reporting machine, and then the CAT software is translating those complicated keystrokes of machine shorthand into written English on a screen. There is virtually no delay in the time someone speaks and when the written words show up on the screen. These two levels of translation happen that fast and are incredibly accurate.

The next function of the court reporter’s job is to ensure a verbatim, accurate transcript is produced by listening to the digital audio at the same time as reviewing the translated text, proofreading the entire transcript, and correcting errors or inconsistencies. The completed transcript is provided to the client in a format requested which can be Word, PDF, ASCII, through paper delivery or electronic.